Properties of Life

According to Darwin and his theory on evolution, organisms are presented with nature’s challenge of environmental change. Those that possess the characteristics of adapting to such challenges are successful in leaving their genes behind and ensuring that their lineage will continue. It is natural selection, where nature can perform tiny to mass sporadic experiments on its organisms, and the results can be interesting from extinction to significant changes within a species.

Many things in this world are only seemingly alive because people assume that the thing is alive. For example even though crystals grow and have reproduction of what they are like most people in society would not classify them as living. There are many things that are out there in the world that may have traits or seen as to be alive, but in reality they are not. Some may say that most living things move like humans and animals, but water also moves around, yet society would say that water is not alive. In one’s perspective they would argue that water is alive to them. They may think this

Life, it might be argued, is the distinguishing feature of all organisms and may most usefully be thought of as involving various kinds of complex systems of organization providing individual organisms with the ability to make use of those energy sources available to them for both self maintenance and reproduction. Underlying this deceptively persuasive definition, however, lie those persistent traditional problems inherent in the search for an essential, distinctive substance characteristic of all forms of life. Additionally, as evolution theory makes clear, there is the problem of borderline instances, organisms of which it is not easy to say whether or not they may be defined as being alive. One such case

Animals fight for survival daily, and sometimes their lives depend on their ability to adapt with their surrounding environments. Natural Selection is the process in which individuals have certain traits that allow

• Be able to use the terms variation, adaptation, natural selection, and evolution as they apply to this and

Organization: The high degree of order within an organism’s internal and external parts and in its reactions with the living world.

90. Mammals are members of a class of reptiles characterized by pressure of hair and

- Information - process heredity info. encoded in genes as well as info. from environment

There are many definitions of success when it comes to the evolution of living organisms: number, diversity, size, distribution, longevity, evolutionary history, generalization, specialization, even usefulness to humans. Throughout history, groups or individual species, have faced many challenges on Earth. All animals have adapted differently to the constantly altering living conditions. Some have been immensely superior to others in their ability to survive and rule all forms of life. Their complexity varies, but because of their ability to adapt, it’s what has made these species successful. Adaptation is an evolutionary process that allows animals to become superior in a particular

Variation is the forefront for progression of a species. All species have wide varieties of

The descendants of the species have been given changes from their ancestors. This is called natural selection. Natural selection is a type of evolution that animals go through when there is a hardship in their natural habitat. Most animals go through natural selection to survive, they can pass it on to their kin.

Phenotypic plasticity, or differing phenotypes from one genotype in different environmental conditions, is a way for sessile organisms to adapt to changing environmental conditions (Valladares et al., 2007). Plasticity was expected to be abundant, however, it did not occur as often in nature due to resource limitations and environmental stress (Valladares et al., 2007).

Overall, viruses are not alive since they rely on other living cells to survive. Most characteristics of living organisms cannot be applied to viruses. With the discovery of the mimivirus, it could be possible that viruses at one point were considered living until they evolved into the viruses they are today. However, discoveries about viruses might yet not be fully discovered or understood and they might evolve again in the

The process of natural selection is the reason evolution occurs, which also supports the evidences of traits that occur. And for natural selection to take effect, three elements are necessary, and variation is two of these three elements. This specific element expresses that with consideration to specific traits, individual organisms in a population are varied from one another, such as differing from reproduction, fitness, and survival. These traits can be advantages or disadvantages. For instance, an advantage can be having a higher reproductive rates which is a good quality for survival. And in the second element relating to variation, it concurs that variation is passed on from parent to child. So if the parent has traits that has higher reproduction and survival, it passed on to their offspring. And the environment itself is the critical mechanism.The environment impacts which traits

Viruses are bound to a state by birth and death. Scientists believe that life is defined by the ability to replicate, among other characteristics. A virus can multiply and spread and die, but it is dependent on a host cell. However, the virus can still replicate itself, which is a characteristic of a living organism. Non-living organisms do not have genetic material to